He got pissed off when Ruskell and co. allowed him to test the market as a RFA instead of sign him to a huge contract or at least give him the franchise tag. He felt betrayed and thus celebrated the whole poison pill aspect of his contract with the Vikings.

The Seahawks reached their first Super Bowl under Ruskell, but they also lost All-Pro guard Steve Hutchinson for no compensation, a mistake that Ruskell jokingly told his wife he didn't want to follow him for eternity.

"Let's look at that will again," he told her, "and it says burial, but let's go for cremation so they won't be able to write, 'Here lies the man that lost Hutch' on my tombstone."

Ruskell/Reinfeldt thought they were doing a Hutch a favor by allowing him to test the market using the Transition Tag.. initially not a bad idea because so many players got pissed off when slapped with the franchise tag.. Well, not franchising Hutch pissed him off to the point where he felt disrespected and left..

The only other person nearly as pissed off as Hutch was Holmgren when he found out that Hutch was transitioned.. Coincedentally, Hutch is the last person in the NFL to given the transition tag.

Barthawk wrote:Ruskell/Reinfeldt thought they were doing a Hutch a favor by allowing him to test the market using the Transition Tag.. initially not a bad idea because so many players got pissed off when slapped with the franchise tag.. Well, not franchising Hutch pissed him off to the point where he felt disrespected and left..

The only other person nearly as pissed off as Hutch was Holmgren when he found out that Hutch was transitioned.. Coincedentally, Hutch is the last person in the NFL to given the transition tag.

It wasn't that Ruskell/Reinfeldt were too cheap to pay him, they were following a more conventional logic that said guards don't make tackle money. Steve was a special kind of guard and he knew it, and the application of the Transition Tag (which paid him the average of the top 10 guards in the league and gave him more freedom to "shop around") rather than the Franchise Tag (top 5 average and much more restrictive) made him feel like the Seahawks felt he wasn't valuable enough to them. The "poison pill" that the Vikings put in were 2 conditions that the Vikings could meet and the Seahawks couldn't that, if violated, would guarantee him the full $49m of their contract offer. The Seahawks were forced into a position where they had to let him go.

Barthawk wrote:Ruskell/Reinfeldt thought they were doing a Hutch a favor by allowing him to test the market using the Transition Tag.. initially not a bad idea because so many players got pissed off when slapped with the franchise tag.. Well, not franchising Hutch pissed him off to the point where he felt disrespected and left..

The only other person nearly as pissed off as Hutch was Holmgren when he found out that Hutch was transitioned.. Coincedentally, Hutch is the last person in the NFL to given the transition tag.

That's exactly right. All of it.

One other point to remember is that this was shortly after three straight seasons where the Seahawks could not reach an agreement with Walter Jones and had to franchise him. Ruskell understandably did not want to risk getting into the same situation with Hutchinson. Unfortunately--as is the case with most of his tenure here--Ruskell was reactive instead of proactive. He thought Seattle would be able to match any offer Hutch would get and thus avoid the possibility of franchising Hutch multiple times and got caught flat-footed when the Vikings slipped the poison pill into Hutch's contact.

People sure are cutting Mr. Poisonpill76 there a whole lot of slack for acting like a jackass in response to the perceived slight. Say what you will about Ruskell's mistake, and it was a huge one, Hutchinson was still a prick, and I think it shows in his new nickname.

Barthawk wrote:Ruskell/Reinfeldt thought they were doing a Hutch a favor by allowing him to test the market using the Transition Tag.. initially not a bad idea because so many players got pissed off when slapped with the franchise tag.. Well, not franchising Hutch pissed him off to the point where he felt disrespected and left..

The only other person nearly as pissed off as Hutch was Holmgren when he found out that Hutch was transitioned.. Coincedentally, Hutch is the last person in the NFL to given the transition tag.

That's exactly right. All of it.

One other point to remember is that this was shortly after three straight seasons where the Seahawks could not reach an agreement with Walter Jones and had to franchise him. Ruskell understandably did not want to risk getting into the same situation with Hutchinson. Unfortunately--as is the case with most of his tenure here--Ruskell was reactive instead of proactive. He thought Seattle would be able to match any offer Hutch would get and thus avoid the possibility of franchising Hutch multiple times and got caught flat-footed when the Vikings slipped the poison pill into Hutch's contact.

I think he also thought Hutch was a little too big for his britches and that this was some "tough love" to teach Hutch a lesson that Guards are the 2nd tier of the offensive line and should be paid as such.

jkitsune wrote:People sure are cutting Mr. Poisonpill76 there a whole lot of slack for acting like a jackass in response to the perceived slight. Say what you will about Ruskell's mistake, and it was a huge one, Hutchinson was still a prick, and I think it shows in his new nickname.

As an old expression used to go...."Two wrongs don't make a right". IMHO....both men were in the wrong! Both men had egos like King Kong! Consequently both men "lost"...the Seahawks and the city of Seattle, however, lost the most.

jkitsune wrote:People sure are cutting Mr. Poisonpill76 there a whole lot of slack for acting like a jackass in response to the perceived slight. Say what you will about Ruskell's mistake, and it was a huge one, Hutchinson was still a prick, and I think it shows in his new nickname.

As an old expression used to go...."Two wrongs don't make a right". IMHO....both men were in the wrong! Both men had egos like King Kong! Consequently both men "lost"...the Seahawks and the city of Seattle, however, lost the most.

I really don't think Ruskell's decision was an ego thing. He thought he was negotiating in good faith, which isn't smart when dealing with the contracts of elite players. It was a miscalculated risk, although I thought it made a lot of sense at the time to let Hutch try to establish his own market value.

jkitsune wrote:People sure are cutting Mr. Poisonpill76 there a whole lot of slack for acting like a jackass in response to the perceived slight. Say what you will about Ruskell's mistake, and it was a huge one, Hutchinson was still a prick, and I think it shows in his new nickname.

As an old expression used to go...."Two wrongs don't make a right". IMHO....both men were in the wrong! Both men had egos like King Kong! Consequently both men "lost"...the Seahawks and the city of Seattle, however, lost the most.

I really don't think Ruskell's decision was an ego thing. He thought he was negotiating in good faith, which isn't smart when dealing with the contracts of elite players. It was a miscalculated risk, although I thought it made a lot of sense at the time to let Hutch try to establish his own market value.

They both acted like tools. The Hawks touched base with Hutch about extending him before the season was over. His agent's very words were Hutch 'intended to test the waters in free agency' In light of that, Ruskell decided that the franchise tag might result in a prolonged holdout, so he opted for the transition tag, so Hutch could test free agency, as he said he wanted to do, and the Hawks would have the right to match any offer. This approach worked well for one of our guys prior to Hutch (I forget who exactly), but Hutch #sigh!# viewed the lack of the Franchise tag as disrespect. There was also input from our salary cap guy (Reinfieldt), so i think that's where the perceived slight may have come from.

Hutch is still very much to blame for allowing the poison pill into the deal. Had that not been there, the Hawks would have matched anything the Vikings offered. They even went as far as reworking Big Walt's contract in order satifsfy the conditions of the poison pill, but the 'arbitrator' decided the Hawks couldn't do that 'after the fact' which is really fishy because intent of the transition tag includes allowing the incumbent team to match offers from other teams.

For that arbitrator to allow language in the contract that basically said Hutch's salary from the Seahawks had to satisfy the conditions of the poison pill before anybody had a chance to even read it is completely ridiculous.

The vikings sleasy ownership and GM suffered a lot of backlash from the league for making the transition tag basically worthless. From my understanding, the new transition tag terms have been revised, so as not to allow that type of under-handed activity.

It was so stupid on Ruskell's part because the difference between the transition tag and the franchise was really small as I recall: well under $1 million. The transition tag provided barely any protection as we all saw. Because Ruskell got cute and tried to penny pinch with one of the best players in the league, the team got burned. Of course, Hutch didn't have to sign a poison pill contract but he did.

Aros wrote:He got pissed off when Ruskell and co. allowed him to test the market as a RFA instead of sign him to a huge contract or at least give him the franchise tag. He felt betrayed and thus celebrated the whole poison pill aspect of his contract with the Vikings.

This.

Hutch's departure had nothing to do with poison pills, it had everything to do with Ruskell and Holmgren screwing up the "transitional" tag.

They thought they could just let Hutch shop around, then transition tag him if a long term deal wasn't struck, and save the franchise tag for Alexander or Hasselbeck. Oops.

Sgt. Largent wrote:Hutch's departure had nothing to do with poison pills, it had everything to do with Ruskell and Holmgren screwing up the "transitional" tag.

I disagree.

Hutch's departure had EVERYTHING to do with the poison pill offer sheet that Minnesota put together.

Minnesota put together an offer sheet that stated that Hutchinson had to be the highest paid offensive lineman on his team.

In order for the Seahawks to match that offer, they would have had to pay Hutchinson more money than they were paying Walter Jones... and that made absolutely no sense.

Ruskill underestimated Minnesota's creativity in their poison pill offer sheet. The NFL reviewed it and upheld it... but owners all agreed that poison pill offer sheets would never happen again.

That's the way that I remember it. Minnesota basically screwed us... and Hutchinson took the money and ran.

It should have never got to the point of Minnesota "screwing us." If Ruskell would have just stepped up and gave Hutch a nice long term contract like he deserved, then the poison pill never would have been an issue.

Again, Hutch's departure was about him being pissed at the Hawks not giving him the contract he thought he deserved, and not about the poison pill. Like other's have said, Hutch didn't have to sign the contract with Minnesota, he signed it because they gave him the contract that Seattle should have.

Sgt. Largent wrote:Hutch's departure had nothing to do with poison pills, it had everything to do with Ruskell and Holmgren screwing up the "transitional" tag.

I disagree.

Hutch's departure had EVERYTHING to do with the poison pill offer sheet that Minnesota put together.

Minnesota put together an offer sheet that stated that Hutchinson had to be the highest paid offensive lineman on his team.

In order for the Seahawks to match that offer, they would have had to pay Hutchinson more money than they were paying Walter Jones... and that made absolutely no sense.

Ruskill underestimated Minnesota's creativity in their poison pill offer sheet. The NFL reviewed it and upheld it... but owners all agreed that poison pill offer sheets would never happen again.

That's the way that I remember it. Minnesota basically screwed us... and Hutchinson took the money and ran.

It should have never got to the point of Minnesota "screwing us." If Ruskell would have just stepped up and gave Hutch a nice long term contract like he deserved, then the poison pill never would have been an issue.

Again, Hutch's departure was about him being pissed at the Hawks not giving him the contract he thought he deserved, and not about the poison pill. Like other's have said, Hutch didn't have to sign the contract with Minnesota, he signed it because they gave him the contract that Seattle should have.

mONEY OVER ALL ELSE MATTERED the most TO fuTCH. Do you think he makes it into the HOF?

Don't put this on Mike Holmgren, he was pissed when he found out they had transitioned him. He was on vacation and prior to leaving he and Ruskell got together and the agreement was to pin Hutch down so he couldn't leave and work out a deal.

Didn't we go after Nate Burleson from Minn after that with a poisoned offer sheet? I think I read somewhere that the offer stated something like if Burleson played more than 5 games in the State of Minnesota his entire contract became guaranteed.

I like Nate but would rather have kept Hutch. At least we got some sort of revenge though, petty as it was.

Edit, yep found it:

The offer sheet stated that the entire $49 million would be guaranteed if Burleson played five games, in one season, in the state of Minnesota, or if his average per year exceeded the average of all running backs on the team combined.

He was the best interior guard in football for quite some time and deserved his contract.

Ruskell was just an incompetent jackass

Meh. He didn't deserve left tackle money. Regardless. Our issue wasn't letting him go, it was not replacing him.

QFT. My problem with the whole Futch fiasco was not so much losing him, but why couldn't we find a decent replacement? Sure, we probably couldn't easily find another all-world guard, but somebody competent would have been nice. I was kind of a Ruskell supporter before this happened. This is when it really came out about how badly our personnel decisions were going.

Our O-line has not been the same since then. It is coming around a bit under Cable, but it's still a bit of a work in progress all these years later.

Talent can get you to the playoffs.It takes character to win when you get there.SUPER BOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS

Y'all can be mad all you want at Ruskell for the Transition Tag strategy. But the simple fact is this: In a non-corrupt league, it would have worked! That's a straight-up fact, and it matters.

The ruling of the so-called "Special Master" was clearly counter to the spirit of the league's own rules. There's no way the Poison Pill contract should have been allowed to stand. Holmgren has said as much in several interviews, if you listen closely. How do we know this? Simple. They outlawed these types of deals after the tit-for-tat stuff with the Burleson deal that made the situation clear. Not only was there no real way to anticipate such nonsense, there was surely no way to anticipate that the NFL would let it stand.

Ruskell was trying to be clever and pinch a few pennies. But that's what you do with the salary cap, right? And that few hundred k here or there is the difference between a practice squad guy and a quality special teams guy. Those are the types of differences that turn Super Bowl caliber teams into multiple Super Bowl teams.

Of course it never would have got there at all if Hutchinson wasn't so weirdly irrational and b!tchy about it. Nonetheless, be mad at the right people, the ones who actually had the power to act properly and who chose not to: the suits in the league's corporate offices.

Sgt. Largent wrote:It should have never got to the point of Minnesota "screwing us." If Ruskell would have just stepped up and gave Hutch a nice long term contract like he deserved, then the poison pill never would have been an issue.

Again, Hutch's departure was about him being pissed at the Hawks not giving him the contract he thought he deserved, and not about the poison pill. Like other's have said, Hutch didn't have to sign the contract with Minnesota, he signed it because they gave him the contract that Seattle should have.

That is not correct at all. HawknPeppa is absolutely correct. Hutch's agent told our front office when we tried to extend him during the 2005 offseason that his client wanted to test the free agent market in 2006. Ruskell basically gave Hutch what he wanted in the ability to test the market and we got screwed by Hutch, his agent and the Vikings. If Hutch's revisionist history after he signed with the Vikings is to be believed, why did his agent never come to us during the 2005 season or before free agency began and tell our front office that his client had changed his mind and was willing to start up contract talks? I have been the most vocal on this site about Hutch never wanting to be a Seahawk in the first place as when he was receiving his jersey on the draft stage he looked like someone had just kicked his dog, and I stand by that claim. Sure, he played like a professional while he was here, but as soon as he had a chance to get back to the midwest he practically ran out of the PNW.

Hutch's departure had EVERYTHING to do with the poison pill offer sheet that Minnesota put together.

Minnesota put together an offer sheet that stated that Hutchinson had to be the highest paid offensive lineman on his team.

In order for the Seahawks to match that offer, they would have had to pay Hutchinson more money than they were paying Walter Jones... and that made absolutely no sense.

Ruskill underestimated Minnesota's creativity in their poison pill offer sheet. The NFL reviewed it and upheld it... but owners all agreed that poison pill offer sheets would never happen again.

That's the way that I remember it. Minnesota basically screwed us... and Hutchinson took the money and ran.

It should have never got to the point of Minnesota "screwing us." If Ruskell would have just stepped up and gave Hutch a nice long term contract like he deserved, then the poison pill never would have been an issue.

Again, Hutch's departure was about him being pissed at the Hawks not giving him the contract he thought he deserved, and not about the poison pill. Like other's have said, Hutch didn't have to sign the contract with Minnesota, he signed it because they gave him the contract that Seattle should have.

mONEY OVER ALL ELSE MATTERED the most TO fuTCH. Do you think he makes it into the HOF?

7-time All-Pro, I say he absolutely makes it into the HOF. He is undoubtedly one of the best interior linemen to ever play the game and the Seattle/Minnesota fiasco was one of the key factors in establishing the value of a top Guard in the NFL.

Sgt. Largent wrote:It should have never got to the point of Minnesota "screwing us." If Ruskell would have just stepped up and gave Hutch a nice long term contract like he deserved, then the poison pill never would have been an issue.

Again, Hutch's departure was about him being pissed at the Hawks not giving him the contract he thought he deserved, and not about the poison pill. Like other's have said, Hutch didn't have to sign the contract with Minnesota, he signed it because they gave him the contract that Seattle should have.

That is not correct at all. HawknPeppa is absolutely correct. Hutch's agent told our front office when we tried to extend him during the 2005 offseason that his client wanted to test the free agent market in 2006. Ruskell basically gave Hutch what he wanted in the ability to test the market and we got screwed by Hutch, his agent and the Vikings. If Hutch's revisionist history after he signed with the Vikings is to be believed, why did his agent never come to us during the 2005 season or before free agency began and tell our front office that his client had changed his mind and was willing to start up contract talks? I have been the most vocal on this site about Hutch never wanting to be a Seahawk in the first place as when he was receiving his jersey on the draft stage he looked like someone had just kicked his dog, and I stand by that claim. Sure, he played like a professional while he was here, but as soon as he had a chance to get back to the midwest he practically ran out of the PNW.

That's not exactly right though. The Seahawks WERE offering him an extension all the way up to free agency, but only for $6m a year. Hutch wanted more like $7m, but the Seahawks were following conventional wisdom on Guard salaries and didn't want to pay him $7m. The reason they applied the Transition Tag wasn't so much that they were trying to pinch pennies that year. Applying the Franchise Tag would have given him just about $7m, which would have weakened their position the following year in negotiations. Tagging him as Transition would have kept his salary at about $6.4m, which was closer to the $6m number that they wanted for him. I think that is what angered Hutch enough to allow the poison pill. He felt like the Seahawks didn't value him as a top guard in the NFL and were basically giving him their final offer. When the Vikings gave him the number he wanted, he made sure he was going to a team that really wanted him there and the Vikings were all too eager to oblige with the "poison pill".

Sgt. Largent wrote:Hutch's departure had nothing to do with poison pills, it had everything to do with Ruskell and Holmgren screwing up the "transitional" tag.

I disagree.

Hutch's departure had EVERYTHING to do with the poison pill offer sheet that Minnesota put together.

Minnesota put together an offer sheet that stated that Hutchinson had to be the highest paid offensive lineman on his team.

In order for the Seahawks to match that offer, they would have had to pay Hutchinson more money than they were paying Walter Jones... and that made absolutely no sense.

Ruskill underestimated Minnesota's creativity in their poison pill offer sheet. The NFL reviewed it and upheld it... but owners all agreed that poison pill offer sheets would never happen again.

That's the way that I remember it. Minnesota basically screwed us... and Hutchinson took the money and ran.

You're forgetting that Jones restructured his deal to make Hutchinson the highest paid linemen on the team, however the pill said at the time of the contract Hutch needed to be the highest paid linemen making Jones restructuring moot.

Whoever said they transitioned him so they could franchise Hass/Alexander that's not true, you can only franchise OR transition a player, you can't franchise AND transition another a player.

Had they franchised Hutch and Minnesota wanted him bad enough we would of at least got a 1st round pick out of it.

I think the Hawks would have been much better off continuing with Maurice Morris/Hutch then they were with Mike Wahle/Shaun Alexander and all the bums we plugged in at left guard for the next few years after that.

Dreo wrote:Didn't we go after Nate Burleson from Minn after that with a poisoned offer sheet? I think I read somewhere that the offer stated something like if Burleson played more than 5 games in the State of Minnesota his entire contract became guaranteed.

I like Nate but would rather have kept Hutch. At least we got some sort of revenge though, petty as it was.

Edit, yep found it:

The offer sheet stated that the entire $49 million would be guaranteed if Burleson played five games, in one season, in the state of Minnesota, or if his average per year exceeded the average of all running backs on the team combined.

I always really liked Burleson and was happy to have him. But every time I looked at him, in the back of my mind I couldn't help but think of him as the consolation prize in the Steve Hutchinson sweepstakes.

FREE PEHAWK

Sac>CANI love Sac with all my heart, and wish I were half as handsome as he.

The transition tag was the right business decision. It allowed a market price to be set, in a situation where there wasn't one. No one knew what an elite guard was worth then. So, the Seahawks wanted an idea of his value on the market...less they risk overpaying. Hutch went back on his word on allowing the Seahawks to match, most likely.

I just logged in to add that most importantly... The aftermath in the days leading up to the arbitration hearing are what led me to coin the name "Futch", which I think is the only cool thing I ever did on this board and will always assure that I get proper credit for. We all have ourMoment of brilliance in our lives. Unfortunately that is as close as I'll ever get.

SharkHawk wrote:I just logged in to add that most importantly... The aftermath in the days leading up to the arbitration hearing are what led me to coin the name "Futch", which I think is the only cool thing I ever did on this board and will always assure that I get proper credit for. We all have ourMoment of brilliance in our lives. Unfortunately that is as close as I'll ever get.

I would say, keep trying to achieve that moment of brilliance. It'll happen, some time.